Category: NT
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Thoughts on Pain and Suffering
How could a good God allow so much pain and suffering? I wonder how often this is asked in earnest. It seems to be a trump card, a get-out-of-thinking question, one that is played as unanswerable. The typical answers are something like either God is good but is powerless to stop the bad things, or […]
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A Kingdom that Cannot Be Shaken
Daniel chapters 2 and 7 both relate dreams that cover the same progression of kingdoms from different perspectives, and both serve to contrast the succession of fleeting manifestations of the City of Man with the solid, eternal City of God. In chapter 2, Daniel interprets a dream that troubled Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon. The […]
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Heart of Flesh
Ezekiel 36 talks about the uncleanness of Israel, not just in the land but in the presence of all the nations to which God had driven them out. This uncleanness is not dirtiness but death, the death of empty idolatry, of exposed flesh, the death that Jesus says comes up from the inside, from the […]
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For the Body
Exodus 3 and 4 recount Moses’s encounter with God at the burning bush. God tells Moses that He has heard the cry of His people and He knows their sufferings and that He has come down to deliver them from the Egyptians. He said to Moses, “‘Come, I will send you to Pharaoh that you […]
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Covenant King
2 Samuel 7 is a passage we hear frequently. It is an important passage because it is God’s establishment of His covenant with David. The chapter is divided into two sections. The first section starts with the king sitting in his house and goes through the vision that God gives to Nathan the prophet. Yahweh […]
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So All Will Know
Leviticus 19 includes the phrase that Jesus quotes as the second great commandment, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” God gives examples of what this means, anticipating the pharisaical question, “Who is my neighbor?” He includes the poor, the sojourner, the hired worker, the deaf, the blind, the great, the one living near you, and any […]
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Though He Slay Me
The book of Job fits in with the book of Proverbs as a book of kingly training. It begins with the familiar story of this great and wealthy man who loses everything he has — his family, his home, his servants, animals, and crops — all in one day. He is plagued with sores from […]
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Walk in the Covenant
In Deuteronomy, Moses recounts God’s establishment of His covenant with His people and the giving of the Ten Words. He walks them through a covenant renewal ceremony, rehearsing Israel’s disobedience and urging them to trust God, to obey, and to remember what God has done for them in their deliverance from bondage in Egypt. Moses […]
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As the Waters Cover the Sea
Isaiah 45 is addressed to Cyrus, king of the Persians, whom God calls His anointed — His messiah, His christ — the one who would shepherd His people. God tells him that He will give him the nations so that all will know that Yahweh is God and there is no other, so that all […]
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Father to Son
It is significant that the book of Proverbs is addressed from father to son. Teaching should take place within an existing relationship of trust and love, and that relationship must be cultivated if teaching is going to be effective. An estranged son will not be receptive to the wisdom his father offers. But this is […]